Story about Andrea

SESSION 643, FEBRUARY 26,1973     9:20 P.M. MONDAY

Today Ruburt received a call from a young woman I will name Andrea. She is a lovely young blonde. I would like to use this instance as an excellent example of the ways in which conscious beliefs affect your feelings and behavior. Andrea is in her early thirties, divorced, with three children. She called to tell Ruburt that she had lost her j ob this morning; but more than this, that she was involved in a week of very negadve circumstances and emotional encounters. A young man she had been seeing began to avoid her. A salesman placed her in what seemed to be a very humiliating situation, and yelled at her in front of a crowd of people. All of her other encounters of late had seemed to follow the same pattern. Finally she became ill and emotionally overwrought. She stayed home from work, and that situation culminated in the loss of her job.

She told Ruburt that she felt herself to be an inferior person, unable to cope, an individual who was not able to hold her own with her coworkers or the world at large. She had carried those beliefs of course throughout that period of time, and they were expressed unconsciously through her body —through gestures, expressions, tones of voice. The whole physical self expected rebuffs. The events of those days, whatever they were, would be interpreted in the light of that mental set (intently). All of the available data coming into the organism would be sifted, weighed and valued in a precise search for the material that would give physical emphasis to those beliefs. Information or events running counter would be ignored to a large degree, or distorted in such a fashion that they would be made to fit in with what the mind said was reality.

Conscious beliefs focus your attention, channel it and direct your energy so that you can swiftly bring the ideas into your physical experience. They also act as blinders, throwing aside data that cannot be assimilated while preserving the integrity of the beliefs. So our Andrea did not see, or ignored, the smiles that came her way, or the encouragement; and in some cases she even perceived some potentially beneficial events as “negative” — these then were used to further reinforcethe belief in her own inferiority. Over the phone Ruburt reminded Andrea of her own basic uniqueness, and also of the fact that she was creating her reality through beliefs.
Ruburt reinforced other ideas that Andrea had momentarily forgotten — the fact, among others, of her own true worth; and because Ruburt believed in Andrea’s worth, and because Andrea knew it, this more positive
belief rose up to shove the others aside.

During the day, Andrea was able to look at both beliefs and see them as opposing ideas that she had held about herself. She believed she was unique and good — and also that she was inferior and bad. At various times one belief would color her experience nearly to the exclusion of the other. Just before this session Andrea called ack. She realized that she had indeed set up the situation by not dealing honesdy with her own conscious ideas.
She had wanted to leave her j ob for another one but was afraid of taking the step, so she created circumstances in which the decision was seemingly taken out of her hands; it would appear as if she were the victim of unfeeling co-workers, jealous and misunderstanding, and a boss who would not stand up for her.

(Pause at 9:42.) Now she understood that she was not a victim but the originator of those conditions. During the time involved, her feelings faithfully mirrored her conscious beliefs. She was lost in self-pity and self-condemnation. These brought about the weakened body state. In speaking to her the second time.

Ruburt gave Andrea excellent advice, explaining the way in which such feelings can be handled to advantage. In his or her own way, each reader can easily utilize the method. Ruburt advised Andrea to accept the validity of such feelings as feelings— not to inhibit them, but to follow their flow with the understanding that they are feelings about reality. As themselves they are real. They express emotional reactions to beliefs. The next time Andrea feels inadequate, for example, she is to actively experience that feeling, realizing that even though she feels inferior this does not mean that she is inferior. She is to say, “I feel inferior,” and at the same time to understand that the feeling is not a statement of fact but of emotion. A different kind of validity is involved.

Experiencing your emotions as such is not the same as accepting them as statements of fact about your own existence. Andrea is thensupposed to ask, “Why do I feel so inferior?” If you deny the validity of the emotion itself and pretend it away, then you will never be led to question the beliefs behind it.